Ever play hot potato?  Isn’t that was going on in America?

In this case the hot potato is blame.  ‘It’s his fault!” “No, its his fault!”

You wanna see who is really at fault in america?  Grab yourself a pen and paper.  Turn on the television.  Watch any channel you wish.  Watch and take notes for 1 half hour.

Now go get your bible.  Read the bible for 1 half hour.  Take notes about what you read.

Compare your notes for 1 half hour.  If you were honest with your time and what you wrote down, you should be able to see the difference.  Then you should know who is to blame.

He wore clothing of camel’s hair.  He had a leather belt around his waist to hold it together.  His food was locust and wild honey.  Do you think the people today would laugh at such a man?

Of course they would laugh at such a man they laugh at any man who speaks the truth of God no matter what he looks like.

When I first became a Christian I got a job at the cannery.  My first day they gave me a plastic helmet to wear.  I took it home knowing exactly what I was going to do.

That night I was busy marking and carving the helmet.  Everything Jesus, I was so deeply in love with the one who had bought my soul.  Do you think they laughed at me all that season?  Of course they laughed at me.  But their laughter is a good teacher, it taught me to persevere regardless.

Now if you look at my blog you can see a picture of a new hat.  Do you think I am a spectacle among those I work with?  Of course they laugh at me and poke fun at me behind my back.  Perhaps a few will be bold enough to confront me face to face.

There is no question why I do it.  The question is to them.  “Why do you laugh at me?  You are a thoughtless horde and don’t realize your plight.  Yet shouldn’t you know?  Haven’t you heard the warnings about hell and death and torment and blackness forever?  Of course you have.  But you do not associate the warnings that I give you with the warnings of God.  You laugh at the very truth of God what is it to me if you laugh at this fool?  So it was with all God’s prophets.  So it will be with anyone who openly announces the kingdom of God and all its attributes.

So I dress curiously in your sight.  Most of you will not understand.  But by Gods grace perhaps one or two will come to understanding.

Regardless the number of the harvest, I will not have remained silent in this place of testing.   I will simply have done what I was asked to do. And the glory will belong to the One who bought me.

What about you my friend, my brother and sister in Christ?  Are you willing to take the ridicule that God the Father has taken from his enemies?  Do you love him enough to make a fool of yourself for the love he has for all man?  You don’t have to wear a foolish hat.  You know as well as I do that simple words can make you a fool in men’s sight. 

I don’t want your answer answer to God.

By His Grace

I could say I finally understand.  But I realize I did not understand before I understood.   Does that sound funny?  Well, it’s true.

And even now I likely don’t understand as I should.  In order to grow, however, we need to allow some level of understanding and say it is, at least for the moment, competent.  I mean, there was a time when I was competent enough to be moved into 2nd grade.  (I fear that might be the place I stopped learning)

All that preamble for the sake of saying this:
I see that everything I have or could have belongs to the Lord.  Most people would consider me rather dense because the Bible says so.  Doesn’t it?

Everything good I have belongs to Him.  What reasonable Christian would disagree?  But here’s a point that the majority of people miss.  Even the sin I had, and loved so much before I met Him, belongs to Him.

You think that’s a crazy and stupid statement?  What is sin?  Isn’t it simply a perversion of what is good?

So next time you’re talking to an un-saved person, tell them they have to give their sinful life back to God.  That oughta spin a mind or two.

Our entire experience here is based on segments of time.  One minute saw such accomplished.  An hour was stamped by this certain happening.  A day, a year, groups of years, and so on.

I’m having troubles with a distinctly different marking system.  More and more I am convinced that God measures our advances toward holy behavior.  His system can’t be quantified by us because it’s measures and goals are outside physics.  He doesn’t really care what we build, or don’t, in any certain time stamp.

The demands of His measure are far more serious than obeying the laws of society.  Society changes its mind on every issue.  God’s demands are eternal, thus never change.  Here we measure how we met and conquered change. 

He helps us if we ask.  But the things of this world are not His direct focus.  That may go some distance in explaining what we call “un-answered prayer”.  He cares deeply about us, but not over the same issues.

Everything’s different between the two measures.  But His is, by far, the most compelling.  And what shall we do when the two measures compound uopn us?  Who should we strive to please, God or man?

It’s wiser to stop and catch the breeze from heaven then to run headlong toward the stench of hell. 

A lot of people think, “How stupidly obvious”.  But how many of those have actually stoped they’re greedy pursuit to search for the Lord God Almighty?